"A jelly doughnut with chocolate, whipped cream, nuts and bacon on top"

These Quantum computers are not computers, they don't exist in any form currently, they are NISQ device physics experiments that might one-day lead to a prototype for something useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_intermediate-scale_quantum_computing

Since NISQ devices lack full quantum error correction, error mitigation techniques become essential for extracting meaningful results from noisy quantum computations. These techniques operate through post-processing measured data rather than actively correcting errors during computation, making them suitable for near-term hardware implementations.[29][30]

 

Gee thanks for telling us lady
That means we were right about you though (ha ha). Sensationalist physics.

 

It doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't know how to sell your stuff as a good salesman .... and she's both

 

It doesn't matter how smart you are if you don't know how to sell your stuff as a good salesman .... and she's both

She's another sensationalist physics video junky. She can make things interesting but it may always be questionable.

"The universe is going to die off some day with all the stars burning out and the last bit of life taking its last breath".
Gee thanks for telling me that it makes a great bedtime story for my grandkids (ha ha)
(That's a general paraphrase not necessarily one of hers)

 

I went back to post #1, and the fact is that quantum computing is certainly an "interesting concept", in that it seems to share some characteristics with the previous concept "Fuzzy Logic", which was "The Next Big Thing" quite a few years ago. I recall reading about "Fuzzificzztion" of standard binary logic at the time.
Certainly speculation on the results of bypassing the basic laws of physics can produce interesting possibilities. Just think about what could be done if Friction or inertia could be bypassed somehow.

 

She's another sensationalist physics video junky. She can make things interesting but it may always be questionable.

"The universe is going to die off some day with all the stars burning out and the last bit of life taking its last breath".
Gee thanks for telling me that it makes a great bedtime story for my grandkids (ha ha)
(That's a general paraphrase not necessarily one of hers)

I think you are right. More and more these days I see people with some expertise who seem to have simply decided that their "job" is to produce these youtube posts, that's how they earn their living now. This in turn means they are driven to increase their audience and that means that sensationalism and antics win out over truly intelligent discourse.

The absolute worst IMHO is Professor Dave Explains a guy who should rename his channel to Professor Dave Complains because he delights in attacking others.

 

Fuuturist has just described one of the main reasons that I avoid the you tube, and why I refer to it as the cartoon channel. Then folks jump on me and say it has lots of valid stuff. I suppose that is possible.
Does anybody else see some similarity between "Quantum Computing" and the "Fuzzy Logic" process that was highly touted a few years ago?? OK, it may have been quite a few years ago.

 

Fuuturist has just described one of the main reasons that I avoid the you tube, and why I refer to it as the cartoon channel. Then folks jump on me and say it has lots of valid stuff. I suppose that is possible.
Does anybody else see some similarity between "Quantum Computing" and the "Fuzzy Logic" process that was highly touted a few years ago?? OK, it may have been quite a few years ago.

No, not really.

 

Fuuturist has just described one of the main reasons that I avoid the you tube, and why I refer to it as the cartoon channel. Then folks jump on me and say it has lots of valid stuff. I suppose that is possible.
Does anybody else see some similarity between "Quantum Computing" and the "Fuzzy Logic" process that was highly touted a few years ago?? OK, it may have been quite a few years ago.

I bit to unpack here.

Yes, YouTube is rife with total crap ranging from people that think they know what they are talking about but don't to people committing outright fraud.

Yes, YouTube has a lot of valid and useful stuff.

No, I don't see much similarity between quantum computing and fuzzy logic, beyond both being overhyped, mostly by people that don't understand the technologies.

If quantum computers achieve the same level of practical utility that fuzzy logic has, it will be significant even if it goes no further. Fuzzy logic is used extensively in automotive control systems, consumer electronics, medical diagnostic tools, traffic systems, industrial process control, and robotics. That is has dropped out of the popular-press-hype-machine does not mean that it has gone the way of the dinosaur - it is very much alive and in widespread use.

 

Fuuturist has just described one of the main reasons that I avoid the you tube, and why I refer to it as the cartoon channel. Then folks jump on me and say it has lots of valid stuff. I suppose that is possible.
Does anybody else see some similarity between "Quantum Computing" and the "Fuzzy Logic" process that was highly touted a few years ago?? OK, it may have been quite a few years ago.

Hi,

Thanks for the notes, but I don't see how you are tying Quantum Computing with Fuzzy Logic. Perhaps you can elaborate on what you see as similarities and differences, or something.

These days as soon as I see the words "might be" or "could be" or similar I immediately exit the article. These are what we sometimes call "half truths" that do not do us much good except MAYBE as entertainment. When I read a science article though I don't expect to be entertained, I expect to learn something real and truthful, not something that might happen or might be or could be or whatever. It only leads to more might-be's and could-be's as we have seen with various TV programs on all kinds of unproveable stuff like Ancient Aliens. It is very unfortunate that these often attract viewers because then that motivates these producers to make more of that total junk, which perpetuates even further as time goes on. It's actually degusting.
There is probably no way to stop it because for a lot of people it is entertaining and they actually think they are learning something from it when really they are obtaining the royalist of the royal BS'ing schmooze.

 

Inside the sub-zero lair of the world's most powerful computer


​

Neven holds up Willow, Google's latest quantum chip, which has delivered two important milestones. He said it settled "once and for all" the discussion about whether quantum computers can do tasks that classical computers can't.

Willow also solved a benchmark problem in minutes that would have taken the best computer in the world 10 septillion years, so more than a trillion trillion, or one with 25 zeros on the end, more than the age of the universe.

 

Inside the sub-zero lair of the world's most powerful computer
View attachment 361754
​

How many times have we heard this? The devices are not Quantum computers, they are impressive physics experiments, solving benchmark set problems, with known (how to you know the QM experiment data is correct) results.

The Quantum Echoes Algorithm

https://spectrum.ieee.org/quantum-echoes

Critics of quantum computers have argued that the supposed advantage these machines have over regular computers have often relied on tests involving pointless tasks. Now, the team at Google Quantum AI has developed a new algorithm that the company says may be used by quantum computers to outperform classical supercomputers on a task that could help discover better drugs, polymers, catalysts, and battery components.

The researchers caution their early experiments on this task have not yet demonstrated a “quantum advantage“ over classical computers, as this preliminary work examined only small molecules that are relatively easy to analyze. However, they say these results do raise hopes that further progress can realize practical benefits.
...
A possible Path to Quantum Advantage
In a new study in the journal Nature, Google says a potential real-world application for this algorithm (formally known as an out-of-time-order correlator) may lie in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which is essentially magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for molecules and materials. For instance, in experiments involving up to 15 of Willow’s qubits that coupled the new algorithm with simulations of molecules, the researchers could generate accurate, precise models of molecular structures, findings scheduled to appear 22 October in the ArXiv preprint server.

“As quantum computing continues to advance, such simulations could potentially enhance NMR,” says Ashok Ajoy, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. “While things are still at an early stage, this methodology could yield broad applications in the future, given NMR’s wide use across chemistry, biology, and materials science.”

O’Brien cautions that they have currently only combined their algorithm with relatively small molecular simulations. These results “aren’t beyond classical yet,” O’Brien says. Further improvements to avoid or correct errors may help achieve quantum advantage on practical applications, he notes.

All in all, “we continue to be optimistic that within five years, we will see real-world applications that are only possible with quantum computers,” says Hartmut Neven, the founder and manager of Google Quantum AI.

We are making progress as it's only 5 years until real-world applications.

 

I have always questioned many of the claims about distances. Consider that anything happening "a thousand light years away" that they are seeing now, happened 1000 years ago. So mostly, "so what, about it??"
AND, what accurate basis is there for the statements about how many gazillion years some calculation would take a current computer?

 

I have always questioned many of the claims about distances. Consider that anything happening "a thousand light years away" that they are seeing now, happened 1000 years ago. So mostly, "so what, about it??"
AND, what accurate basis is there for the statements about how many gazillion years some calculation would take a current computer?

The statements for how long a calculation would take are firmly rooted in complexity theory.

 

We are making progress as it's only 5 years until real-world applications.

I wonder if one of QCs first applications will be breaking the keys to cryptocurrency. It would be an economic disaster of epic proportions.

 

I wonder if one of QCs first applications will be breaking the keys to cryptocurrency. It would be an economic disaster of epic proportions.

The move is already taking place to post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms, with timelines driven and updated based on estimates of when quantum computers could achieve the capability to attack current algorithms, referred to as Y2Q, (and having the shift done well before then, not just in time). Some of these transitions have roadmaps that require milestones be met this year and the transition be complete by 2030.

The downside is that the key sizes for most PQC algorithms are significantly larger, some in the megabyte range for signatures, though some are a lot more tame. Even so, the smallest signatures are currently in the kilobyte range, more than an order of magnitude larger than current signatures. Since public keys are distributed widely and frequently, an order or two of magnitude increase in public key size will represent a significant increase in Internet traffic volume.

 

I wonder if one of QCs first applications will be breaking the keys to cryptocurrency. It would be an economic disaster of epic proportions.

It will likely be a while be they are effective at real code breaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization_records

Records for efforts by quantum computers
The largest number reliably factored[clarification needed] by Shor's algorithm is 21 which was factored in 2012.[26] 15 had previously been factored by several labs.

In April 2012, the factorization of 143 = 13 × 11 by a room-temperature (300 K) NMR adiabatic quantum computer was reported by a group.[27] In November 2014 it was discovered that the 2012 experiment had in fact also factored much larger numbers without knowing it.[clarification needed][28][29] In April 2016 the 18-bit number 200,099 was factored using quantum annealing on a D-Wave 2X quantum processor.[30] Shortly after, 291 311 was factored using NMR at higher than room temperature.[31] In late 2019, Zapata computing claimed to have factored 1,099,551,473,989,[32] and in 2021 released a paper describing this computation.[33] In 2024, a new approach to embed prime factoring problems into quantum annealers has been proposed, leading to (i) the embedding of 21×12 prime factoring problems into a D-Wave Pegasus architecture; (ii) the factoring of 8,219,999 by using a quantum annealer without exploiting hybrid techniques.[34]

As such, claims of factoring with quantum computers have however been criticized for depending heavily on classical computation to reduce the number of qubits required.[35][36] For example, the factorization of 1,099,551,473,989 relied on classical pre-processing to reduce the problem to a three-qubit quantum circuit.[33] Furthermore, the three numbers factored in this paper (200,099, 291,311, and 1,099,551,473,989) can easily be factored using Fermat's factorization method, requiring only 3, 1, and 1 iterations of the loop respectively.

 

It will likely be a while be they are effective at real code breaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization_records

In fairness, it's not unreasonable to expect that the technology could explode exponentially at some point as one or more persistent issues are finally solved in a scalable way.

 

What operating system will these new computers use?? and who will create the software to do the computing?? It is important to always understand that the hardware is the smallest and least expensive part of the system. It is the software that constantly need repair that costs so very much. (at least the one that has to send out weekly repairs and bug fixes)
GOOD software costs a whole lot more than that!!

 

And when will a Desktop version be available? .... Quantum Laptop, anyone?